


Shades of Purple

by Dabberdees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-29
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-09-30 07:42:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20443391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dabberdees/pseuds/Dabberdees
Summary: The Doctor and Co find themselves captured by a race of slavers and they have to rely on the least likely member of Team TARDIS to rescue them.Part of the Thirteen Doctor Fanzine prompt week, this one is 'rescue'





	Shades of Purple

She’s been awake for a while now, well they all have since they were thrown in this cell together. Their heads hazy about what happened. There was an Impressive statue with a puzzling signature coming from it, then all they felt was a shock, and next thing they knew was waking up here-

_Without her sonic._

And that really put a downer on her mood cause someone nicked her sonic and she only just got that. She frowns and huffs and goes back to looking around the cell. The stark silver walls are annoying to look at; the air is recycled and flat. Frustration and boredom have settled in as well now, she crosses her arms and tries to think of words for bored.

Restlessness, tediousness, humdrum, monotonous… _urgh_. “What’s another word for bored, Fam?” The Doctor demands in a frustrated tone of voice.

“What?” Ryan asks with confusion while his hand rubs the dredges of unconsciousness from his eyes.

The Doctor flicks her eyes to Ryan slumped against the wall opposite. “You know, bored!”

“No, we got that, Doctor, why do you need another word for bored?” Yaz probes from her corner of the cell.

“Because it’s boring,” the Doctor complains with a frown, she pulls against her chains again and huffs in outrage. “How do you manage to live like this?” She asks, chains clattering and causing a racket.

“Like what?” Ryan dares to ask, the headache he has magnified by the Doctor’s shenanigans.

“Sitting around waiting.” the Doctor blurts out before giving up on pulling at her chains for the fifth time in twenty minutes and leaning back against the wall in defeat. She exhales dramatically, shoulders slumping. “I’m bored!”

Yaz frowns at her. “It’s not even been an hour, Doctor, or at least I don’t think it has, has it?” Ryan shrugs at her.

“But If I’m bored now, what will I be like in an hour?” the Doctor whines. "Wait," She furrows her brows in thought and darts her eyes around the room. “Where is Graham? What’s he been doing? He’s quiet.”

It’s Yaz’s turn to frown at her now. “He wasn’t captured like we were, or wasn’t caught in the same energy thing like we were."

“Oh,” the Doctor says with a puzzled look on her face. “I could’ve sworn we were all together.”

“And we were, Doctor, but you charged out of the TARDIS when you wanted to have a look at that statue thingy, and we rushed after you leaving him back in the TARDIS,” explains Ryan. “And then we got captured, taken god knows where and chained to a wall by aliens who probably want to examine and eat us-,” Ryan snaps snappily and cringes at who he just copied, or more precisely, conjured in his absence. “Oh, did I just-”

“Yes, you did,” smirks Yaz. “You totally summoned the spirit of your grandad then; have you been living with him for too long?”

“Shut up,” Ryan says, looking put out. “Still-” he jangles his chains. “Captured and stuck on some planet somewhere.”

The Doctor scrunches her face in thought and sniffs the air. “No…, not a planet, Ryan, the air is too flat,” She wiggles and manages to get her palm pressed against the floor of the cell. Her eyes widen. “We’re on a spaceship!”

“What?” Yaz blurts out. “We were on that planet…”

“No, no, no.” Ryan stammers. “How are we on a spaceship?”

The Doctor’s brows furrow. “I’ve never had good luck with spaceships; things usually tend to go wrong.” She looks at Ryan. “It seems we’ve been taken.”

“Well, that’s obvious,” Ryan retorts while resting his head against his wall.

"Yeah," The Doctor replies.

He glances to the Doctor. “So spaceship then,” repeats Ryan. “Still doesn’t really help us.”

“True,” the Doctor replies, head inclining to the side. “Wonder what Graham is doing and-” Her eyes widen. “My TARDIS, I lost her again!”

“You’ve also lost my grandad as well, Doctor,” Ryan mumbles.

“Doctor, can you tell us who or what has taken us? Like do you recognise the cell or something?” Yaz questions. “Might be useful to know where we stand.”

The Doctor nods and rotates around, so she’s facing the wall. She leans forward and licks it and slaps her lips together before spitting out the flavour and grimacing. “Good news Fam, minus Graham, they won’t kill us, so that’s a plus, but-”

“But?”

The Doctor turns to look at Yaz and smiles. It’s not reassuring. “We’ve been captured by the Krel.”

“You say that like we know who they should be,” Yaz says.

“The Krel?” Ryan says. “What are they?”

“Horrible offshoot of a species with Purple Hair and a really bad taint on what is usually a lovely people, remind me to take you to-” The look on Ryan’s and Yaz’s faces tells her that this isn’t important at the moment. “Anyway, the Krel- Well, the Krel Clan to be precise-” She explains. “-they tend to distance themselves from the people who exiled them, was a great shame on their clan when it happened, and now they've bonded together and-”

“Doctor!” Yaz interrupts. “That’s nice to know, but what we really want to know is what they’re going to do to us?”

“I don’t want to get eaten!” splutters Ryan suddenly, making both Yaz and the Doctor turn to look at him. Yaz furrows her brows together, giving him a perplexed look and he stares at her. “What? I might be a tasty meal for them, you never know!”

“They aren’t going to eat you, Ryan,” The Doctor reassures. “Because eating you would destroy the profit they can make from you.” She informs, instantly making her previous statement obsolete. “They’re going to sell us to the highest bidder, or trade us, depends really. Never can tell with this lot, always a surprise, but not a good one.”

“That’s not any better, Doctor!” Ryan states with wide eyes. “Oh, my days!”

The Doctor looks back at Ryan again. “I won’t let it get that far, I promise,” says the Doctor with confidence. “Just got to think of a plan.”

Yaz glances around the room and tries to pull on her own chains, giving up when she realises that if the Doctor can’t break through them, then she doesn’t have a chance. The Doctor might look smaller, but she’s stronger than she seems. She settles herself back down again and leans her head on the wall with and watches as the Doctor tries to figure a plan out.

She’s content with watching for the time being, but she soon hears something coming their way, and her eyes widen. “Doctor,” She calls out to the cell, dragging Ryan and the Doctor’s attention to her. “You’re gonna have to think fast cause I think they’re coming this way,” Yaz informs with a nod of her head towards the door.

The Doctor turns and focuses on the door and beyond that. “Right,” She says, hearing the sound of boots getting closer. “Thinking fast, thinking fast, thinking fast-”

The sound of the boots stop outside the door, and each occupant leans away from it as it opens, revealing two of the Krels. Purple hair showing from the opening at the top of their helmets, dark worn reddish leather jackets with sashes, military-style trousers with gun holsters, and comfortable looking boots. The smaller, stockier looking one steps into the cell, the glowing eyes of his mask looks at her and then he glances to Ryan and Yaz, almost like he’s checking them out as the other taller Krel speaks up from behind him.

“Seems we caught something better than three humans actually and it took us a while to spot it,” He gestures at the stockier Krel. “-Gris here pointed it out just as we were about to drop you three at the slave market,” He says stepping in and nudging the other on his way past him. “He saved us from selling you for less than what you’re worth." The Krel says. "You have two hearts, and that means one species in particular, doesn’t it Gris?”

Gris nods quickly as the Doctor shrugs and settles herself against her wall. “Lot’s of species have two hearts; some have four stomachs, others have-”

The taller Krel shakes his head. “They do, but it’s not just the hearts, we scanned you and well, what we found. It all means one thing-” He leans in. “-You’re a Time Lord.”

“And I know what you are... and I’m not impressed,” the Doctor says as her gaze turns icy. “You’re Krels, slavers, pirates, low lives,” The Doctor says. “I don’t like slavers; you’re the worst of a bad lot.”

“It’s a business.” The Krel says with a shrug while the emotionless mask hides everything on his face. “Very profitable, a human-” He gestures with his head to Ryan and Yaz. “-sells for a lot, quite useful to refill the ships, but a Time Lord… oh, you’re rare.” He steps forward and takes the Doctor by her face. “You’re worth a lot more than they are. A lot more.”

The Doctor stares into the lenses of the mask, her expression reflecting in them. “How about you don’t sell us and you let us go?” The Doctor suggests, pulling her head free from his grip. “We can forget about this-” She cocks her head to the side. “-Well maybe not, you are slavers after all, and there are probably a few hundred planets with bounties on your heads-”

“Doctor, should you really be goading them right now?” Ryan demands, making the silent one look to him before he turns his head back to the Krel looming over the Doctor, his hand lingers by his gun, fingers twitching.

“The human speaks the truth, Time Lord, you’re chained up, and we hold all the cards here, don’t we Gris?” He asks glancing back to his friend.

“Uh, yeah… we do, Roax.”

Ryan frowns instantly, his eyes darting to the Doctor and Yaz and seeing the same puzzled expression on their faces at the accent and tone of voice coming from the mask.

“See?” Roax says, smugly. “You should do what everyone else has done after we captured them and give-”

Roax doesn’t get to finish as Gris pulls his gun out and shoots him square in the back, making him hit the floor like a sack of potatoes. Gris steps forward and reshoots him for good measure before bending down and collecting his gun. “That was easier than expected.”

“Well that doesn’t happen,” The Doctor says, looking confused. “Krels never betray one another, not after they were exiled. Bonds thicker than blood.”

“Good thing I ain’t a Krel then,” Gris says just as he raises his hand and clicks a button by his ear. There’s a low snap-hiss sound as he removes the mask and reveals his face for the three of them to see. The three of them stare wide-eyed at a purple-haired Graham looking at them in worry. “These last two weeks have been a nightmare!”

“Graham!” The Doctor beams. “Great timing… wait, two weeks? And why are you called Gris?”

“Yes, two for me and you, but you three spent most of the time in stasis before I ‘told’ them I found something strange about you Doc and the only reason I told them was cause if I didn’t then they would’ve just dropped you off at a market to make a quick credit,” Graham explains. "But if I knew how to safely remove you from the stasis thing I would've done that, and I'm Gris because it's French for Grey, had to pick something that I would remember to respond to."

Ryan eyes are still wide as he looks to the Doctor, then to the man on the floor, then to Graham and then back to the Doctor. “Doctor, he shot him, why aren't you mad?” Ryan interjects. He looks to Graham again. “You shot him!”

Graham glances to the body and nudges it with his booted foot. It doesn’t move. “He’s fine.”

“How is he fine?” Ryan shrieks. “He doesn’t look fine!”

The Doctor looks to the man lying next to her on the floor, face first. “No, Graham is right, he’s fine. Although he’ll wake up with a splitting headache.” She looks at Ryan. “The Krel, their weapons only stun, they work like the energy wave that hit us.” She glances back at the Krel. “There’s no point in injuring or hurting a product; stunners work great for that.” She turns back to Graham and smiles. “Loving the hair by the way.”

Graham looks confused before his eyes widen, and he gestures a gloved hand to his head. “Oh, yeah!” He says, now looking very awkward in his Krel get up. “The TARDIS said I should change my hair colour to fit in and-” He shrugs and rubs the back of his head. “-I once dyed it for a few years in the eighties, drove my father mad, but-”

“Stop, stop, you dyed your hair?!” Ryan exclaims with shock. “Why and what colour?”

“It was the eighties, I was in my twenties, and the colour depended on my mood,” Graham replies in a way that makes it seem like the answer to that was obvious. He spots Ryan’s shock. “Honestly, Ryan, contrary to popular belief I was once in my twenties, and I did things that would shock- well, that's not really important right now, is it?”

“The TARDIS told you to?” Yaz asks, trying to get the conversation back on track. “How?”

Graham furrows his brows and gestures with a wave of his hand. “Well no, not exactly, she lead me to rooms in the TARDIS which had items I would need in” He explains. “We planned this, that’s why it’s been a while for me cause I couldn’t just rock up on a ship without planting myself within them and gaining their trust, had to make a cover and everything.” He says as he crouches down to their level and points a finger at the Doctor. “I hope this teaches you about rushing out of the TARDIS without checking first, Doc.”

“Where’s the fun in-” The Doctor starts to say, but she trails off when she spots the glare levelled at her direction. “Spose you’re right, Graham.”

“I know I am,” Graham says all too quickly and snappily. “Cause if you checked then you three wouldn’t have been taken from me and the TARDIS.” He says, looking at her. “And I wouldn’t have been constantly- It doesn’t matter.”

The Doctor face creases into one of worry. “Are you alright?”

“What do you think?” Graham says. “Two weeks! Two bleeding weeks I had to spend on this ship pretending to be one of them, Doc,” He sighs and rubs a hand across his tired eyes. “Two weeks where I didn’t even know if this plan would even work and two weeks since I last talked to all of you, I’ve only had the company of-.” He gestures to the unconscious Krel. “-That lot and fitting in has been… difficult.”

“Fitting in?” Ryan wonders.

Graham shrugs his shoulders and looks away from them all. “They speak about humans like we’re cattle…” He steeples his hands in front of him. “And they’re nothing like us; the social structure is-” he trails off and looks at the Doctor. “-hard.”

“Graham,” The Doctor says. “I’m sorry you had to-”

“It doesn’t matter about me and what I did,” Graham says, cutting her off. “Cause I did it to rescue you lot and I haven’t done that yet, have I?”

The Doctor stares at Graham, and he avoids looking at her as he digs around in a pocket. “Graham,” He stills. “What have you done?”

“Nothing,” Graham answers all too quickly as he pulls out a silver object and smirks at the Doctor. "Want this?"

The Doctor’s eyes widen but she knows he’s just diverted the subject away from himself. “My sonic!” She grins. “You have it.”

“Of course,” Graham replies, handing it over to her. He looks back to all of them again. “Are you three alright, though? The energy the Krel use to stun really does knock you for six.”

Ryan shrugs. “Got a bit of a headache, other than that I’m fine.”

“Same,” Yaz says.

The Doctor glances at them while she sonics her chains free. “That’ll wear off, team,” She reassures as she makes her way over to Ryan and Yaz to undo their restraints. She looks at Graham. “Where is the TARDIS?”

Graham glances towards the door. “It’s not far from here,” He says. “We shouldn’t run into any of the Krels either cause I’ve learnt their patrols before I was sent with my ‘friend’ Roax there to get ya.”

“You’ve really planned this out, didn’t you?” The Doctor says, sounding impressed, but she can’t help the bothersome feeling that he is hiding something.

Graham looks sheepish and shrugs slightly. “Had to, didn’t I? Couldn’t just do nothing,” He looks down at the mask in his hand. “But I can’t take all the credit though, cause I would’ve been totally outta my depth if it wasn’t for your ship, Doc, she really is fantastic.”

“That she is, that she is,” The Doctor smiles before she walks forward and glances out of the cell doors. “You’ll have to lead on, Graham.”

Graham nods. “Right then,” He says, turning towards the door and bringing his mask up, affixing it back to his face again with another snap-hiss. “Follow me-”

“Why do you have the mask on again?” Ryan asks.

“Got the ship layout on it,” Graham answers. “Look, I’ll explain once we’re back on the TARDIS, alright? Cause we should escape when we can.”

Each of them nods and gesture for Graham to lead on and through the ship. He was right in that they never bumped into anyone and it’s not long until they are back at the TARDIS, like he said they would be. The Doctor looks up at her and brushes a hand against the door, smiling when the ancient ship opens them up and tickles her mind with warmth.

“Come on, Fam, let’s get outta here-” She says, frowning. “Maybe we’ll make a pit stop before we leave, mind.”

“Pit stop?” Yaz asks.

The Doctor walks into the TARDIS with her Fam following behind her; she turns to Yaz and smiles. “Just a little one to the engineering rooms, won’t take me a minute.” She informs them as she makes her way around the console, hitting different levers. The TARDIS rattles slightly, the motion stopping as quickly as it started. None of them gets a chance to speak as the Doctor rushes past them and out of the doors.

“Doc!” Graham calls out after her, the tone of his voice coming out mechanical through the mask. “She just got you two and her kidnapped by doing just that.”

The Doctor pokes her head back into the TARDIS. “I checked!” She counters back at him before disappearing again.

Graham looks to Ryan and Yaz and rolls his eyes, only stopping once he realises that they can’t see his face. He removes the mask again and affixes it to a space on one of the sashes.

“So,” Ryan says as he turns to Graham and he takes in his appearances properly now. “What’s with the getup?” He frowns. “You look like a purple-haired Peter Quill-”

Graham gives Ryan a puzzled look. “Who’s that?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ryan replies with a shake of his head. “But my previous question stands, why did you go that far?” He gestures to his head. “Including dyeing your hair purple which I still can’t get over.”

“Probably should wait until the Doc gets back to explain,” Graham says as he rubs the back of his purple head. “It’s a long story.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Ryan,” Yaz says gently. “Perhaps we should wait for the Doctor to get back before Graham explains what he’s been doing.”

Graham smiles weakly at Yaz just as the Doctor comes charging back into the console room, sonic held in her hand. “Now we are going!”

Yaz raises an eyebrow at her. 

The Doctor glances over her shoulder as she passes them. “Reversed their engines, put it into total meltdown-” She sees the look of surprise on their faces. “-meltdown, not radioactive, more like- like… a really slow computer,” She says with a shrug. “Oh, and I also put out a distress signal for the entire quadrant to hear,” Her nose scrunches. “They’re going to have some very unhappy visitors in a moment, which is why we are leaving as quickly as possible because the last thing we need right now is Graham getting caught up in with them on account of his purple hair.”

They all watch as the Doctor moves around the TARDIS console again to get the ancient ship away and into some relative safety. She turns to Graham and sees him looking out of place, his hands twitching while he shuffles from foot to foot. “Right, Team, there’s probably lots to talk about,”

“You can say that again,” Ryan points out. “I have a bunch of questions-”

“I think we all do,” The Doctor says, turning to watch Graham. Ryan and Yaz follow her as well, which only makes the man shuffle harder under their gazes. “Graham?”

“What?” Graham mumbles.

“What did you do?”

Graham's face turns to one of shame, and he looks down. “I stood by and watched as they kidnapped people, and I didn’t do a damn thing to stop it, I stood there and watched with a gun as one of them,” He says. “I put you three over those and they, those humans; they looked at me with such contempt as Krel’s slapped me on the back, congratulating me on spotting that they netted a Time Lord.” He looks up again. “It was the only way to get you three back, and I figured that you would sort it out, but I had to fit in, Doc, I had to, and it was the only way to save you. For all intents and purposes, I was a Krel then cause I looked the damn part-” He gestures down at himself. “And I stood and watched as I did on that bus.”

“Graham,” The Doctor says, and he shuts up and looks to the floor again as the Doctor walks over to him. “Look at me,” He obliges after a moment, and she smiles at him. “You rescued us; you aren’t a bad person for not stopping something you couldn’t stop or-”

“But-”

“Gramps,” Ryan says. “You couldn’t have stopped it if you tried.”

Yaz nods as well. “I echo what has been said, Graham, you got us out, and the Doctor has put a stop to it,” She turns and faces the Doctor. “Haven’t you?”

The Doctor nods and smiles. “How about we see what happened?” Graham frowns at her. “Come,” She reaches out and grabs his hand and drags him to the console and they each grab ahold of it again, the motion of flight taking effect and once again ending as quickly as it started.

The Doctor gestures to the doors and they each turn to look at them as they open. “I wouldn’t step out if I were you, Graham, your outfit would stand out like a sore thumb here, but I want you to see for yourself.”

Graham nods, and he feels Ryan and Yaz come up behind him as they all approach the door. “What am I sposed to be looking at?”

The Doctor gestures to a statue in the middle of a square. The writing unreadable at this distance, but the meaning behind it clear as day.

“Wait, that’s the statue that you ran at.” Graham points out.

The Doctor nods, and she turns and faces Graham. “This was one of the worlds they took and now look at it Graham, that was you-”

“Us.” Graham interrupts.

“Fine, us then,” The Doctor says with a smile. “But you did a lot of work in getting us there.”

“Deffo,” Ryan speaks up from behind Graham and rests his hand on his shoulder.

“Without you, Graham, we’d be who knows where,” Yaz says, and Graham glances at her. “You went out of your comfort zone and got us back while putting a plan in motion to end what the Krel were doing.”

Graham turns back to the statue again, now cleaned up from how he saw it last time. “So they, the people that the Krel took, they’re back home safe and sound?”

The Doctor shrugs and gently closes the doors. “Hard to say, because what the Krel did happened over generations, but it’s stopped now, the people involved arrested.” She informs them. “It won’t happen again.”

“That’s good to hear,” Graham says with a slight smile. “But if you three don’t mind I’m going to get out of this-” He makes a vague gesture across his body and turns to walk away from them all.

“Wait,” Ryan calls out. “What are you going to do about the hair?”

Graham turns back around again. “What about it?”

“It’s purple.”

“And?”

Ryan flicks his eyes between them all. From a smirking Yaz to a grinning Doctor and then back to a serious-looking Graham. “You are not keeping your hair purple!”

“I don’t know,” Graham says and runs a hand through it, pulling part of it down so he can see it. “I think it suits me, haven’t been purple in years-”

“Gramps!” Ryan yelps and turns to face the Doctor and Yaz. “Make him stop.”

“No,” Yaz says, laughing. “If he wants to stay purple, then let him.”

Graham laughs from his side of the TARDIS. “I’m joking, Ryan, I’m going to wait for it to wash out.”

The Doctor frowns at Graham. “For it to wash out?”

Graham glances at her. “Yeah, hair colour washes out after a while, don’t it?”

“Did you use the hair colour in the TARDIS, Graham?”

Graham frowns now and walks further into the console room again. “Well I didn’t pop to Sainbury’s to pick up a Just For Men, did I? I just used whatever the TARDIS lead me to.”

“Oh,” The Doctor says.

“Oh?” Graham repeats, now sounding worried. “What’s that mean?”

The Doctor traces a pattern against the console. “It’s permanent.”

Graham relaxes a tad. “So I’ll just dye it another colour and wait for my hair to grow enough to-”

“No, Graham, it’s permanent.” The Doctor says again. “And when I say permanent, I mean it’s dyed your hair to grow purple, forever,” She steps towards him. “It’s like a tattoo, Graham, you can’t undo it.”

Graham stares back at her, face going through a series of emotions. “Are you saying that the hair on my head is going to grow purple now?” The Doctor nods. “Great, just great.”

“You can always dye it, Graham,” Yaz suggests just as the Doctor shakes her head.

“Wouldn’t work,” The Doctor reveals. “For a few days perhaps, but the purple will show through again.”

“Well, why can’t I just dye it another one of those permanent colours then?” Graham argues back. "Like grey or something?"

“I wouldn't do that,” The Doctor says, truthfully. “You should’ve read the package!”

“I was under a lot of stress; I assumed it worked like the stuff back on Earth,” Graham says, voice hysterical. “Oh, my days.”

"The colour looks fine, Graham," The Doctor says, trying to sound reassuring.

"That's coming from someone who's fashion choice is charity-shop chic," Graham quips before sighing. "Purple then," The Doctor purses her lips at him. "Purple it is then."

Ryan watches this unfold before his eyes, at first he was horrified at the idea of his grandad with purple hair, but considering after the teasing he just did, his sympathy is pretty low now as he lets out a long and hard laugh. “Oh, now this is _classic_.”


End file.
